Ottawa Redblacks look for ways to get Sinopoli's YAC attack going again

Despite the evidence that the Ottawa Redblacks aren’t finding ways to utilize the considerable pass-catching talents of Brad Sinopoli, the 31-year-old receiver said he isn’t worried about the statistics — he just wants his team to figure out a way to win more football games.

This week, with his club preparing for a home showdown with Hamilton on Saturday at 4 p.m., Redblacks coach Rick Campbell talked about his team — and starting quarterback Dominique Davis — finding ways to get the football into the hands of Sinopoli, a YAC (yards after catch) monster in the CFL.

“I’ve never really worried about it,” said Sinopoli, who is coming off four straight seasons of 1,000 yards in receptions with the Redblacks (1,035, 1,036, 1,009 and 1,376). I just get lined up and run the plays that are called. The thing about football is, even if they draw plays for certain people, that doesn’t mean you’re going to get the ball. There are so many different factors. I’ve also been in the position of playing quarterback — reads happen how they happen. You would think you could control a lot of that stuff, but you really can’t.

“Coverage dictates a lot of things. They don’t really double team up here in this league. It’s just mostly coverages — a lot of zones, droppers and whatnot. It’s not like it’s true 1-on-1 football like it is down south. It’s hard to explain. It’s like you could say if you really wanted to do it, you’d do it. If you really wanted to win, you’d win. If you wanted to fix something, you’d fix it. But, unfortunately in football, there are so many factors that go into it.”

Through eight games (the Redblacks have a 3-5 record) in 2019, Sinopoli has 311 yards in receptions with 31 catches. In 2018, he led the CFL with a whopping 116 catches, 22 more than the second-place pass catcher, Hamilton’s Brandon Banks. Sinopoli was targeted 154 times. This year, Redblacks quarterbacks have thrown his way 47 times — inexplicably just twice in a 16-12 loss in Edmonton last Friday night.

“I just get lined up and do the best I can. If you’re blocking a lot, if you’re not getting a lot of balls, you’re trying to do anything you can to help the team,” said Sinopoli. “It’s (not frustrating that I haven’t been catching as many passes), just frustrating because we haven’t been winning.”

A huge factor in the inability to get Sinopoli the ball lies in the ineffectiveness and inconsistency of the Redblacks offence this season. Ottawa has scored just 168 points (just four ahead of Montreal, which has a game in hand) — third-worst in the league. The team needs to find a way to string together first downs and start winning the time of possession battle (Ottawa’s 25:32 per 60 minutes is worst in the league), something it has regularly been losing in going 1-5 in its past six games.

There are other disturbing stats: Ottawa’s net offence of 304.4 yards per game is worst in the CFL and so is its 5.3 average yards per play. With 11 offensive touchdowns, the Redblacks are tied for worst with Toronto and with 143 first downs they’re ahead of only the Argos.

“It’s as simple as saying when you get down there, you have to score in the red zone — that’s a big thing,” said Sinopoli. “And you have to have sustained drives. Last game, we had longer drives, but we don’t want to settle for, ‘OK, we had a couple of nice drives,’ and that’s it. We have to have drives and we have to finish them. We had a couple of big plays last game, something we’ve been lacking. Hopefully we can get a couple of those.”

Campbell said it’s not just a matter of getting the ball into Sinopoli’s hands.

“We need to get the ball more to a lot of people, not just Brad,” he said. “We want to up our numbers, period. We can’t force it to Brad, but we need to be aware of where he is and moments where we can get it to him. That’s through playcalling and making sure we’re making an effort to get him the ball. We don’t want to force it in there, but we definitely want to get it to him more. We can all make each other look good. If everybody starts functioning at a higher level, everybody looks good.”

PRUNEAU SPEAKS: Last week, two days before the Redblacks faced the Eskimos, DB Antoine Pruneau took some jabs Edmonton QB Trevor Harris, his former teammate, in an interview with this newspaper’s Tim Baines (yep, that’s me). The story got plenty of local attention, it ticked off a lot of people in Edmonton and it was discussed a lot on TSN’s national broadcast. Pruneau said, “It doesn’t make (Harris) a bad person, but I didn’t like the fact sometimes he was pointing fingers at other guys. Sometimes, it’s tough to expose yourself to critics. I’ve always been my toughest judge so I expect teammates to be the same way — look at yourself first. If you have something to say, keep it down low.” Asked on Wednesday if he had any regrets in talking about Harris, a teammate for three seasons in Ottawa, Pruneau said, “No. I knew people would see it, but I didn’t think it was as big of a story as it was. When you take shots at somebody like that, you know there are going to be repercussions. I stick to what I said. I said a lot of good things about Trev, too, but none of that was retweeted.”

THE END AROUND: The Redblacks have signed receiver Jerminic Smith and added him to the practice squad. Smith was at Iowa, then played Division II at Southwest Baptist. … WR Jacob Scarfone was moved up from the practice roster to the active roster on Wednesday. … While both DE JR Tavai and RB John Crockett again weren’t full participants in practice, it looks like both will be ready to go versus Hamilton. Said Campbell: “Tavai is available and good to go, and Crockett should be good to go.” … WR/returners DeVonte Dedmon and Rafael Araujo-Lopes will both be out, opening the door for former Als returner Stefan Logan to play. Asked about their injuries and if they might go on the six-game injured list, Campbell said, “We don’t know. We are planning on them not playing, but we don’t think it’s overly long-term. We definitely anticipate them back before the six-game stretch.” … So if Logan is one of the guys back on kickoff return, who else lines up with him? At practice, the Redblacks had Greg Morris and Micah Wright taking kickoffs. R.J. Harris, who returns to the lineup, has also done it … Asked about Saturday’s 4 p.m. start, Campbell said, “Everybody likes it; the earlier the game, the better. If players and coaches had their way, games would always be in the afternoon.” … The CFL announced Wednesday afternoon that Eskimos DB Jordan Beaulieu has been fined for a “tourist hit” on Redblacks LB Shaheed Salmon.

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